Originally manufactured by Duncan's of Edinburgh in their Beaverhall Road factory, there have been a number of flavours of Walnut Whip over the years, including coffee and maple flavours, but currently only vanilla is widely available.

The original Walnut Whip contained a half-walnut, or more usually walnuts that had been broken during handling and transportation and therefore not suitable to be placed on the top. It was later marketed with an extra walnut on top, and subsequently the walnut inside was removed to leave one walnut outside.

The chocolate cone itself and the vanilla fondant filling have altered in recent years. The original whips were hand made by ladies extruding chocolate from a piping bag onto a rubber mould, each containing 12 'formers'. This generated the original deeply ridged surface, and the fondant at that time was more dense. [1] The texture of the outside surface is a skeumorph.

When the Duncan's brand name was dispensed with by Rowntrees and manufacturing moved from Beaverhall Road in the late 1970s, the manufacturing process changed from being hand made to being hollow moulded by machine. An attempt was made to recreate the original surface appearance but with limited success, and it now has no function other than decoration. [2]

1 Currently manufactured by General Mills in the United States. Produced by Cereal Partners under the Nestlé brand elsewhere. 2 Brand owned by General Mills; US and Canadian production rights controlled by Nestlé under license.3 US production rights owned by The Hershey Company. 4 Canadian production rights owned by The Hershey Company. 5 US rights and production owned by Smarties Candy Company, with a different product.6 US rights and specific trade dress owned by Nestlé; rights elsewhere owned by Associated British Foods. 7 Produced by Cereal Partners, branded as Nestlé. 8 Produced by Cereal Partners, and Branded Nestlé in The United Kingdom, and Ireland. Produced by Post Foods, elsewhere.